I was introduced to Keith Maclean (the bearded gentleman in the above photograph which also features Kevin Chesham and Beverley Mason in the background) by his then girlfriend, Elizabeth Wojdyla, in the summer of 1969. We have remained good friends ever since, and, unlike Kevin whom I met some years later, we remain in regular contact. Kevin is someone I became acquainted with through circumstances that threw us together in a work situation during one summer. He remained in touch on and off (more off) thereafter, but it would be a considerable stretch to describe us as friends as we had very little in common. It was clear to most people who encountered him that Kevin was quite obsessive and a little bit unstable.
Not so Keith with whom I have much in common. He is a kind person whose spirituality, love of music and literature makes him stimulating company. He also has a good sense of humour, something totally lacking in Kevin whose idea of humour, rather like David Farrant's, is to poke fun of people behind their backs. Had we had more contact over the decades than we did I would have been unable to remain acquainted with him. Here was someone who had no social skills and was unable to make friends with people. That is probably why I befriended him at a distance and allowed him to attend some old friends' reunion dinners.
Someone who assists Farrant with his manipulative schemes and also organises his website for him by the unconvincing names of "Della Vallicrus / Esacarti / Farrant" (take your pick) - notwithstanding her actual identity - describes Kevin Chesham as being extremely "sensitive" and proffers a string of adjectives that I and others who have known him for years recognise to be the antithesis of everything we have observed.
Never more is this apparent than the defamataory nonsense about Keith posted by Kevin and his wife, Beverley, on their blog. Once again, as with their personal attacks on me, my wife and our friends, these unpleasantries transparently stem from David Farrant whose entire life has been predicated on malice.
Kevin begins his tirade with this salvo:
"‘Br’ Keith is a strange individual. I do not know if his vacant demeanour is the result of brain damage, learning difficulties, his years of drug abuse, his cult indoctrination at the hands of Bonky or just not being very bright. Maybe it is a combination of all or some of these explanations. Or maybe just the need to change his toothpaste to Macleans, and choose instead of staring blindly with the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind to adopt a much more convincing rhetoric by giving us all a dazzling smile (when he is allowed to open his mouth that is.) One things certain tho – the boy ain’t right."
Keith, who went to teachers' training college and is well informed in many academic subjects, is, unlike Kevin, exceptionally bright and well read. Needless to say, Keith Maclean belongs to no cult and is not indoctrinated; nor does he take drugs; nor does he smoke, and his alcohol consumption is very modest.
Kevin continues:
Kevin continues:
"You see, as well as being, shall we say, somewhat backward, ‘Br’ Keith is also a Jesus-Nutter."
Kevin Chesham falls foul of the recently introduced religious hatred legislation with that remark. Some of his ensuing commentary, however, is so sick and libellous that I shall obviously not repeat such offensiveness here. One of Kevin's less depraved fabrications involving Keith I shall nonetheless share:
"By this time I do remember that Sean had purchased a Hornby train set and was populating it with little men and trees etc which he was buying off Ebay. He had set it up on a table in a room upstairs. ‘Br’ Keith spent many happy hours in Sean’s playroom (they are both in their 60s!) gazing gormlessly at the trainset. Sometimes if he had been a good boy Sean would even let him have a go, but this was rare, as Sean was notorious for hogging the ‘choo choo’, leaving ‘Br’ Keith to watch him enviously. Maybe this was one of the reasons he liked to visit the Bunkerlow so much, always with the inspiration that he might get to play Thomas the Tank!"
I have owned a Hornby Dublo model railway since early childhood, but Kevin Chesham has only seen internet images of it on one of my blogs after his betrayal of those who befriended him. I have never discussed model railways with Kevin because it is not something that would remotely interest him, and my own layout was never set up during the period when he visited. As a collector, I had always been meaning to restore and improve my original model railway and am very pleased I have now done so. See below:
My model railway might not be as vast as pop-singer Rod Stewart's, or self-manufactured like the record producer Pete Waterman's, but it is entirely diecast and tinplate without a trace of plastic anywhere to be found. Some is pre-war, but mostly it hails from the 1950s. I also collect Hornby "0" gauge. See below:
Another falsehood published which is not so stomach-wrenching that it cannot be reproduced follows:
"Even [Keith's] birthday cake for example – which could be seen as a kind gesture – was intended to mock him and how his ‘friends’ Sean and Sarah see him. And the tragedy is that Keith was the only one there who just couldn’t see the joke."
We do throw our friends parties on special occasions. In this case it was Keith's sixtieth birthday and we made an occasion of it for him; something that would be memorable. He was absolutely delighted. There was no "joke" and the cake my wife made for him was considered by everyone to be a good likeness.
Being a portraiturist in the mediums of photography and oil on canvas, I tend to paint people I know. Kevin could not resist commenting in his familiarly insensitive and uncharitable manner about one I did of Keith:
"I was rather nauseated when at the same party Sean got ‘Br’ Keith to pose in front of a terribly executed portrait of him which he had painted ‘in his honour’. Like all of Sean’s paintings it resembled something which a young child would produce, but to puppy dog Keith it may as well have been a Michaelangelo commission. Because the Commander had seen fit to commend his underling’s image to canvas."
In fact, I painted more than one portrait of Keith. He can be seen alongside one of them below where also included is my painting of St Francis of Assisi whom both Keith and I hold dear. I was consecrated on the feast of St Francis in 1991. Another portrait of Keith is seen being admired by a visiting friend, and below that is a portrait I made of Kevin Chesham about which he is peculiarly silent. It was executed before the full extent of his treachery was apparent, and yet it contains all the worrying aspects of a disturbed individual.
Finally, I shall provide my old friend of many years - Keith Maclean - with the last word. He has obviously seen what Kevin wrote about him and others. Yesterday my wife and I received the following from Keith (I have attached the beginning of his handwritten letter to identify for whom it is intended and the date):
Another falsehood published which is not so stomach-wrenching that it cannot be reproduced follows:
"Even [Keith's] birthday cake for example – which could be seen as a kind gesture – was intended to mock him and how his ‘friends’ Sean and Sarah see him. And the tragedy is that Keith was the only one there who just couldn’t see the joke."
We do throw our friends parties on special occasions. In this case it was Keith's sixtieth birthday and we made an occasion of it for him; something that would be memorable. He was absolutely delighted. There was no "joke" and the cake my wife made for him was considered by everyone to be a good likeness.
Being a portraiturist in the mediums of photography and oil on canvas, I tend to paint people I know. Kevin could not resist commenting in his familiarly insensitive and uncharitable manner about one I did of Keith:
"I was rather nauseated when at the same party Sean got ‘Br’ Keith to pose in front of a terribly executed portrait of him which he had painted ‘in his honour’. Like all of Sean’s paintings it resembled something which a young child would produce, but to puppy dog Keith it may as well have been a Michaelangelo commission. Because the Commander had seen fit to commend his underling’s image to canvas."
In fact, I painted more than one portrait of Keith. He can be seen alongside one of them below where also included is my painting of St Francis of Assisi whom both Keith and I hold dear. I was consecrated on the feast of St Francis in 1991. Another portrait of Keith is seen being admired by a visiting friend, and below that is a portrait I made of Kevin Chesham about which he is peculiarly silent. It was executed before the full extent of his treachery was apparent, and yet it contains all the worrying aspects of a disturbed individual.
Finally, I shall provide my old friend of many years - Keith Maclean - with the last word. He has obviously seen what Kevin wrote about him and others. Yesterday my wife and I received the following from Keith (I have attached the beginning of his handwritten letter to identify for whom it is intended and the date):
